1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to the field of computer systems and, more specifically, to a method, system, and computer program product in a logically partitioned data processing system that includes a management console for displaying messages in the console's native language regardless of the physical locations of the partitions or console.
2. Description of Related Art
A logical partitioning option (LPAR) within a data processing system (platform) allows multiple copies of a single operating system (OS) or multiple heterogeneous operating systems to be simultaneously run on a single data processing system platform. A partition, within which an operating system image runs, is assigned a non-overlapping subset of the platform's resources. These platform allocable resources include one or more architecturally distinct processors with their interrupt management area, regions of system memory, and input/output (I/O) adapter bus slots. The partition's resources are represented by its own open firmware device tree to the OS image.
Each distinct OS or image of an OS running within the platform is protected from each other such that software errors on one logical partition can not affect the correct operation of any of the other partitions. This is provided by allocating a disjoint set of platform resources to be directly managed by each OS image and by providing mechanisms for ensuring that the various images can not control any resources that have not been allocated to it. Furthermore, software errors in the control of an OS's allocated resources are prevented from affecting the resources of any other image. Thus, each image of the OS (or each different OS) directly controls a distinct set of allocable resources within the platform.
A management console may be utilized as part of the logically partitioned data processing system to manage the various partitions, partitioned hardware, software execution, as well as to perform other management functions such as error handling. Errors are reported from the partitions to the management console and then displayed, via the management console, to a user.
One of the services provided by the management console is to provide serviceability for the system automatically. When an error occurs on a partition, it is delivered to the management console for service. If the same error is being reported from multiple partitions, they are delivered to the management console as separate serviceable events, where they are merged into a single serviceable event. If the management console is being set up for automatic service, the service team is notified about the problem shortly after the error occurs on the partitions.
In some logically partitioned systems, various partitions as well as the management console may be located in different geographical regions. In some cases, the partitions and management console may each be located in different countries. This presents a problem when configuring the system for use according to the local native language.
Also, a system could be shared by several international teams where each team has its own partition set up with its own choice of locale. The administration team could be the host country which wants to set its own locale on the management console. The notification of the errors would be sent to the service team, such as in the U.S. for example, with error descriptions in English.
There is no native language support for error messages that are reported from the partitions to the management console. The error messages delivered from the partitions to the management console are reported in the native language set according to the geographical locale of a partition, and not according to the language of the locale where the management console is located. Thus, for example, if a partition is located in Japan and the management console is located in France, error messages from the partition will be displayed by the management console in Japanese or English. The users in France may have difficulty translating the Japanese error messages.
For partitions, a native language support (NLS) catalog may be bundled with the operating system which then supports various languages. It is not practical, however, to bundle these same catalogs with the management console. For systems where the partitions as well as the management console are located in different countries requiring different language support, multiple different catalogs would have to be supplied with the management console. Coordinating all of these different catalogs would be very complex and error prone.
Further, a user could add software or hardware to a partition at a later time that supplied error messages in a language not supported by the partition's catalog. In this case, even if the management console did have the partition's language catalog, the console would not be able to translate error messages that were generated by the new software or hardware.
Therefore, a need exists for a method, system, and computer program product in a logically partitioned system that includes multiple partitions and a management console that may all be located in different locales for displaying messages in the native language of the geographical location of the console without requiring the console to have a partition's NLS catalog.